by David Niven
Flynn picked himself up, ‘Which of you sons of bitches did that?’
‘I did, sonny,’ said a huge gorilla of a man, ‘want to make anything of it?’
‘Yes, I do,’ said Flynn. ‘Get of your horse.’
Nobody could stop it and the fight lasted a long time. At the end of it the ‘gorilla’ lay flat on his back. After that everyone liked Errol much more. Goldwyn decided that I was ripe to appear in one of his own super-pictures and cast me as Captain Lockert in Dodsworth with Walter Huston and Ruth Chatterton. Walter had created the role on Broadway and had now moved to California. His son, John, then a script writer, also worked on the picture. He and his father were wonderful to me, so was Ruth Chatterton. William Wyler, the director, was not.
As his record plainly shows, Willie Wyler is one of the world’s all-time great directors. Practically without exception, his films have been hugely successful, both critically and financially. He may have mellowed by now but in 1936 he was a Jekyll and Hyde character.
Kind, fun and cosy at all other times, the moment his bottom touched down in his director’s chair, he became a fiend.
Some directors, especially those touched by the Max Reinhardt School, believed in breaking actors down completely so that they became putty in their hands. As practised by Willie, he even managed to reduce the experienced Ruth Chatterton to such a state that she slapped his face and locked herself in her dressing room. I became a gibbering wreck.
Whenever I was working it was perfectly normal for Willie to sit beneath the camera reading the Hollywood Reporter and not even look up till I had ploughed through the scene a couple of dozen times—‘just do it again’ he’d say, turning a page.
The picture was a big hit in spite of my wooden performance. I have only kept one ‘review’ during my life. It is of Dodsworth and appeared in the Detroit Free Press.
In this picture we were privileged to see the great Samuel Goldwyn’s latest discovery—all we can say about this actor (?) is that he is tall, dark and not the slightest bit handsome. It has the place of honour in my lavatory.
Irving and Norma, like all the top movie people, had a private projection room in their home. One night Lubitsch brought down a print of Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife and they ran it after dinner for their friends.
I sat squirming with embarrassment throughout the showing but after it was over, everyone, with one exception, was overly flattering and enthusiastic. Fairbanks and Sylvia, Merle, the Astaires, Paulette Goddard and Frederick Lonsdale, all puffed me up most pleasantly. One guest sat silent in his chair. Finally, I could stand it no longer.
‘What did you think, Mr. Chaplin?’
His answer constituted the greatest advice to any beginner in my profession.
‘Don’t be like the majority of actors…don’t just stand around waiting your turn to speak—learn to listen.’
By the autumn of 1936, I was very much involved with a G.B.S. (Great Big Star).
The G.B.S. was doing a week of publicity in New York for her latest vehicle and we had a rendezvous to meet there.
I made a side trip to see Lefty and Norah, by now blissfully happy in ‘Little Orchard’ at Tryon, North Carolina.
Tommy Phipps was there and his highly talented sister, Joyce Grenfell, was over from England. Lefty took me to see the local high school football games and among the glorious colours of the Fall, I rode with him along the foothill trails of the Smoky Mountains. It was a wonderful few days and a most salutary contrast to the life I had been leading in Tinsel City, but I fear the lesson passed almost unnoticed and I hurried off to keep my tryst with the ‘G. B.S.’ in the St. Regis Hotel.
The ‘G. B.S.’ was gorgeous and quite adventurous.
‘Let’s not fly back to California—let’s take the sleeper to Detroit—buy a Ford and drive it out.’
She bought the car—I drove and the first night we spent together in Chicago.
She disguised her well-known face with a black wig and dark glasses and called herself Mrs. Thompson. In the lobby nobody recognised her. Though it was highly unlikely that anyone would recognise me, I went along with the game and called myself Mr. Thompson.
The desk clerk handed G.B.S. a telegram, ‘For you, Mrs. Thompson.’ I was mystified.
‘How could that happen? I said.
‘I promised Jock Lawrence I’d tell him exactly where we’ll be all the way across in, case the studio needs me urgently, then I can hop a plane.’ She opened the envelope—
TELL NIVEN CALL GOLDWYN IMMEDIATELY JOCK.
‘Forget it,’ said the G.B.S. ‘call him tomorrow—it’s too late now.’ We went to bed.
The next night we spent in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
‘Telegram for you, Mrs. Thompson,’ said the desk clerk.
TELL NIVEN CALL ME TONIGHT WITHOUT FAIL GOLDWYN.
We didn’t want the idyll spoiled even though the new signature gave me an eerie feeling of impending doom.
In North Platte, Nebraska, the wording was crisper—
ASK NIVEN WHAT HE THINKS HE’S DOING HAVE HIM CALL TONIGHT OR ELSE GOLDWYN
Still we pressed happily on across the country, and the telegrams became more alarming at each stop. The one at the Grand Canyon was very unattractive indeed—
TELL NIVEN HE’S FIRED GOLDWYN
The G.B.S. was made of stern stuff;—‘He can’t do that,’ she said, ‘and anyway he wants me for two more pictures. We’ll call him when we get to California—not before.’ I was so besotted by the G.B.S. that I even managed to enjoy the rest of the trip except when we turned off the main road in the middle of New Mexico and got stuck in the desert at sunset.
Finally, the ten-day trip ended and we crossed the State Line into California. From a motel in Needles, with great apprehension, I called Goldwyn.
‘Do you know what you’re doing, you stupid son of a bitch?’ he yelled. ‘You’re doing about a hundred and thirty-five years in jail. Ever heard of the Mann Act and taking women across State Lines for immoral purposes? Think what Winchell would do to that girl, too, if he got the story—you’re through I tell you…you’re…’
His voice was pitched even higher than usual. The G.B.S. leaned across the bedside table and grabbed the phone out of my hand.
‘Sam, darling,’ she purred, ‘I’ve had a simply gorgeous time so don’t be angry with David…I’ll explain it all to you when we get back tomorrow…’ She motioned me to go out of the room and finished her conversation alone. When she found me later, she said, ‘Sam’s sweet really, everything’s okay again, you’ve been reinstated.’ The ‘actor’s nightmare’ is the role of Edgar in Wuthering Heights. Soon after I came back from my trip with the G.B.S., Goldwyn called me in and told me he had cast me to play it. ‘Laurence Olivier will play Heathcliffe and Merle Oberon, Cathy,’ he said.
‘But it’s the most awful part ever written,’ I said, ‘and one of the most difficult; please don’t make me do it.’
‘You’ll have the best director in the business,’ said Goldwyn. ‘He’ll make it easy for you.’
‘Willie Wyler.’
I could not afford it, but I immediately asked to be put on ‘suspension’—the combination of ‘Edgar’ and Wyler was too daunting. On paper, if a contract actor refused to work, he could not, of course, complain if his weekly salary was suspended, but what happened in practice was that the actor was suspended not only for the duration of the picture (four months for a big one), but the producer had the right to suspend him for half that amount of time again as a punishment, then the whole six months was added on to the end of the original contract. In studios with unscrupulous managements who purposely gave actors assignments which they knew would be refused, players were sometimes trapped for twelve or fifteen years working off a seven-year contract. Years later, Olivia de Havilland fought this and took it all the way to the Supreme Court. She won, and thereafter, if someone refused to work, he didn’t get, paid but it became illegal for the length-of his contract to be altered without
his consent. Olivia struck a great blow for freedom and everyone in the industry should bless her but she hardly ever worked in Hollywood again.
Goldwyn did not offer people roles in, order to prolong their contracts, and he found it hard to understand my intransigence.
One day after I had been on suspension for two or three weeks, Willie Wyler called me.
‘Come and have dinner at Dave Chasen’s,’ he said.
Over drinks he asked, ‘Tell me truly, why you don’t want to play Edgar?’
‘Because it is such an awful part,’ I said.
‘It’s not, you know,’ said Willie, ‘and you are one of the few people in the business who can make it better than it is.’
Now that was pretty heady stuff coming from one of the great directors to someone with my minimal experience.
‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’ Willie said.
‘Honestly, Willie, I love you, I love being here with you but I was so bloody miserable working for you on Dodsworth—I just couldn’t go through it again. You’re a sonofabitch to work with.’ Willie laughed.
‘I’ve changed,’ he said, ‘come and play the part—it’s a wonderful cast…it’ll be a great picture and I’ll make you great in it.’ I weakened at once, of course.
‘Okay, under one condition—that the night before I start work, you come and have dinner with me here, and I’ll remind you that you’ve changed—that you’re no longer a sonofabitch.’
It was arranged.
I reported to the studio next day and did all the costume fittings and renewed my acquaintanceship with Laurence Olivier who had arrived that morning from England.
Larry appeared with a fantastically beautiful kitten-like creature on his arm—Vivien Leigh.
Viv had come out to be with Larry during the shooting of our picture and within a week of that day, she met David O. Selznick, was tested and over the furious heads of all the big established female stars was handed the role of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind.
The night before I was to start filming, Willie Wyler kept his word. We had a good dinner at Chasen’s and played ping-pong on the back patio.
As we bade each other good night, Willie laughed.
‘Don’t worry—you’ll have fun…I’m not a sonofabitch any more.’ The shooting next day was on location in the San Fernando Valley. Goldwyn had reconstructed Wuthering Heights in rolling hills, and except for the fact that the heather of the moors was about four feet high, it looked wonderfully like Yorkshire. In the first scene, I had to drive up in a two horse buggy with Merle looking very demure as Cathy at my side. Once I had stopped at exactly the right mark, the dialogue commenced. Wyler was up on a rostrum about fifty feet in the air, with the camera.
A few rehearsals to practise that tricky stop and we made the first ‘take’.
The horses halted just right.
Cathy. ‘Come in, Edgar, and have some tea.’
Edgar. ‘As soon as I’ve put the horses away.’ Wyler. ‘CUT! Just play it perfectly straight, David—this is not a comedy, you know.’
After a long drive, breasting through the heather, we arrived back for the second ‘take’.
‘Come in Edgar, and have some tea.’
‘As soon as I’ve put the horses away.’
‘CUT! What’s so funny, David? This is not a Marx Brothers picture. Do it again!! Off we drove.
Forty something times I drove those damn horses round the San Fernando Valley. Finally, Wyler said, ‘Well, if that’s the best you can do, we’d better print the first one I suppose.’
‘Willie,’ I said, ‘remember last night at Chasen’s??
‘Yea, I remember—what about it??
‘You really are a sonofabitch, aren’t you?
‘Yes—and I’m going to be one for fourteen weeks!’
No one was spared by Willie. The girls were reduced to tears on several occasions and even Olivier was brought up all standing.
The most talented and most reasonable of performers, after being told twenty or thirty times to play some long scene once again, without any specific instructions as to how to alter it, he finally confronted Wyler. ‘Willie, look—I’ve done it thirty times—I’ve done it differently thirty times—just tell me, that’s all. What do you want me to do? Wyler considered this for a long moment—‘Just .…just be better.’
When Cathy was lying dead in her big bed with her family all around her, and a lot of great performers they were too—Flora Robson, Geraldine FitzGerald, Hugh Williams, all weeping silently and Larry circling purposefully round the fireplace, I glanced nervously at the instructions in my script. (Edgar breaks down at foot of bed and sobs)
‘Willie,’ I whispered, ‘I can’t do that.’
‘Do what?’
‘Sob. I don’t know how to.’
‘Speak up.’
‘I don’t know how to sob, Willie.’
‘Speak up…louder.’
‘I DON’T KNOW HOW TO SOB,’ I yelled.
Wyler addressed the whole set—‘Well, you’ve all heard it—here’s an actor who says he doesn’t know how to act…now…SOB.’
I tried and it was pretty grisly. ‘Tam’ Williams got hiccoughs bottling his laughter and Larry looked up the chimney.
I tried again.
‘Jesus,’ said Wyler, ‘can you make a crying face?’
I made some sort of squashed-up grimace.
‘Oh, God,’ he groaned, ‘Irving0
Irving Sindler, the prop man, was instantly at his side.
‘Give him the blower,’ said Wyler.
Greg Toland, the cameraman, gave his signals and the film started passing through the sprockets.
‘The blower, Irving!’ said Wyler.
Through a handerchief, Sindler puffed menthol into my open eyes. Bend over the corpse,’ said Wyler. ‘Now make your crying face…Blink your eyes…Squeeze a little…Bend over the corpse. Heave your shoulders.’
A terrible thing happened. Instead of tears coming out of niy eyes, green slime came out of my nose.
‘Ooh! How horrid!’ shrieked the corpse, shot out of bed and disappeared at high speed into her dressing room.
Thanks to Wyler, the picture was a big hit and has remained one of the all-time classics. And incidentally any time Wyler wants me to work for him—I’ll be there.
There was an excitement and generosity of spirit in Hollywood—a minimum of jealousy and pettiness, everyone felt they were still pioneering in a wonderful entertainment medium.
The premieres of the big pictures were black tie events and all the big names turned out to cheer on their friends. Outside, ‘bleachers’ were erected to enable the screaming fans to catch a glimpse of their favourites and searchlights waved weaved patterns across the sky. After the show, a loudspeaker alerted the fans to the departing of the great Mr. Clark Gable’s car!
Miss Marlene Dietrich’s car!
Miss Constance Bennett’s car!
Miss Shirley Temple’s mother’s car! and on one glorious occasion—Mr. Alfred Hitchcar’s cock!
Some of the conveyances were a trifle exotic. Connie Bennett sat inside the wicker-box body of a Rolls Phaeton with a spotlight on her…outside in all weathers sat her chauffeur.
Tom Mix drove himself in a white open Packard wearing a white ten-gallon hat.
Marlene Dietrich had a black Cadillac driven by a chauffeur named Briggs who carried two revolvers and in winter wore a uniform with min% collar. Marlene, the most glamorous of all, was also one of the kindest. Once, I was ill with flu in my chalet shack on North Vista Street. She hardly knew me but Briggs was a friend and he told her I was sick. Marlene arrived with soup and medicine. She then went to work and herself cleaned the whole place from top to bottom, changed my bedclothes and departed. She came back every day till I was well.
Goldwyn continued my build-up and gave me a good part in The Real Glory with Gary Cooper. Then I was loaned to Darryl Zanuck to play two important roles at Twentieth Centur
y Fox, both with Loretta Young, still as sweet and as generous as ever. The whole Young family turned up for the first day’s shooting. John Ford directed one of these, an experience actors prayed for. So incredibly sure was his touch that he cut the film with his camera as he went along. All the editor could do was join the pieces together in the correct order and there was the picture.
Ford, like many movie greats, had a soft spot for the practical joke. I had a birthday during the picture and Loretta presented me with a cake which the whole crew devoured.
‘David,’ said Ford, ‘tomorrow you have very little to do—you’ll just be background so tonight go on out and enjoy yourself-really tie one on.’ I hate getting drunk but I felt that I had more or less been ordered to do so and I did my best to oblige. I started slowly, after work, in Tyrone Power’s dressing room, then home where Flynn joined me enthusiastically, continued at the Trocadero with Mike Romanoff, then I visited two German lesbians in Encino and after making the rounds of Chasen’s, the Brown Derby and various bars in Hollywood, I finished up in Doc Law’s All Night Cafe in Santa Monica. From there, I went directly to the studio at eight o’clock in the morning, very drunk indeed and thinking how pleased John Ford would be.
We were rehearsing the first scene. All I had to do was bind up George Sanders’ arm who had been shot. Suddenly, I heard Ford say, ‘Hold it—what’s the matter with you, Niven? Why don’t you stand still?’
‘Sorry, Mr. Ford.’
‘Just a minute—are you drunk or something?’
‘Well, I did have a few, Mr. Ford…I thought you said…’
‘Cut the lights,’ said Ford.
‘Send for Mr. Zanuck. Tell him I have a drunken actor on my set—ask him to come down right away.’
I was sobering up rapidly but still not registering too clearly. All I knew was that people were backing away from me, not wanting to be part of the impending showdown.
Zanuck marched on to the set, looking ferocious, followed by his henchmen. ‘What’s the problem, Jack?’
‘Goddam Limeys,’ said Ford, ‘they’re all alike…give ‘em an inch…this actor reported for work drunk.’
